


Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired

by Deannie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3568856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint comes home from an op with a problem. Tony has a solution. Nothing's ever easy with boys who have issues, though, is it? </p><p>or</p><p>Tony tries to make things better and Clint calls him on that because it's stupid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quoth/gifts).



> Dean's standard Deaf writing conventions: **_lip-read speech_** and (SIGNED LANGUAGE)
> 
> This fic refers to an event that happens in a fic called "The Music Is Nothing" which hasn't been posted yet. You don't actually need to know anything about it, though. But if you'd like to read it when I post it, I'd love that.

Well, that assignment had sucked.

Clint Barton wanted a beer, some more aspirin, and a good twenty-four hours of nothing blowing up in his face—or anywhere else nearby. He was beyond tired, but he really needed to sit and relax and watch something stupid with people who got what it was like when an op went bad and you made it out alive anyway. He stumbled up the stairs from the quinjet hangar to the huge common room of Avengers Tower and looked around at the silence.

 _Ha,_ he thought bitterly. _Funny._ Everything was silent right now. Stupid hearing aids. You’d think Stark could have designed ones with better electrical shielding. His ear canals were still stinging from the strike that had blown the things all to hell, and the burns, while minor, meant he couldn’t use his backup aids. The doctors at SHIELD said he wouldn’t heal for at least a week or two—which would give Tony enough time to redesign the things. With shielding this time, damn it. Lots of shielding. Assuming, of course, that the burst of electrical noise hadn’t blown out what little hearing he had left...

 _Shelve that one, Barton,_ he berated himself. Worrying about it wouldn’t help. He took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders, and put it out of his mind as he considered the empty, very, very silent, common room. Deaf again. At least he was used to it, right? But it meant that Steve would inevitably bench him from any world-ending conflicts, because it was just too hairy out there. Or some damn thing. He was really tempted to run a couple of ops completely unwired, just to prove he could. Stupid ears.

He sighed, annoyed that no one was around. After a fuck up like this, he was kind of looking forward to just kicking back with the rest of the team (and yes, the very idea that _he_ was craving that kind of interaction was still surprising six months after the Battle of New York). Hell, he couldn’t even ask JARVIS where they’d got to. He headed toward the computer terminal in the corner, figuring he’d check his messages and maybe open a text chat with the AI and see where everyone was. As he walked toward the terminal, however, a neat block of holographic text appeared in the air before him:

`Welcome back, Agent Barton.`

”JARVIS?” Had to be JARVIS, right? What the hell was this?

`The Avengers were notified of the events of your latest foray,` the text block continued, `and Mr. Stark thought it prudent for me to be able to provide you with written interactivity until such time as you have recovered and your hearing aids can be replaced.`

Clint snorted, though an almost grateful smile ghosted across his lips. “Whack-ass genius.” Probably figured Clint would be completely lost without his ears. Ever since Clint had let Stark experience what it was like to be deaf, Tony would occasionally— whenever he actually remembered that Clint was deaf at all—get weird about making things “easier” for him.

The captions in the air would certainly do that, but it didn’t make the overt concern any less strange. Clint turned around and headed for the bar. His messages could _always_ wait, but he still needed that beer, company or no company. “Where is everybody?”

`Mr. Stark and Miss Potts are attending a social function at the New York City Opera,` JARVIS replied, the words floating beside the fridge as Clint pulled out a bottle of microbrew. Okay, so the visual interface was, admittedly, kind of cool. `Captain Rogers is out of the building on personal business, Dr. Banner is in his apartment, and Miss Romanoff is in the 88th floor gym.`

“Personal business,” Clint muttered feeling the words rumble through his chest silently. “Date night for the super soldier…” Who the hell would he be dating?

He took a sip from his beer bottle and walked toward the elevator. Nat would know.

 

The gym was dark except for the fight area at the far end, and Clint stopped just inside the door, considering. His view of the lighted section of floor was partially blocked by the obstacle course, but he knew there would be the sound of fists and feet hitting wood or plastic or canvas—probably canvas because Natasha tended to be old school with that—but he’d begun to forget how the sounds actually… sounded. Like, with real ears. Stark’s hearing aids were amazing, but… they weren’t real, really.

He stuffed that particular regret away, knowing he was just sulking because he was going to have to be completely deaf again for a while. He usually spent time without his hearing aids when he wasn’t on duty, but that was a choice, a way to turn off the noise and just de-stress. Now he had no way to turn it back on when he was sick of the silence. He shook his head angrily at his own whining. He could handle it.

Didn’t have to like it, though.

`Is he just going to stand there in the dark all night? He’s deaf, not blind.` Below the words glowing in the darkness was a tiny note: `translated from Russian.`

Admittedly cool had just become decidedly creepy.

“Nat, either JARVIS has started insulting me, or he’s closed captioning you. In which case, stop insulting me.” He started walking again, reaching the pool of light to see a defenseless wooden dummy beaten all to hell by his sometime partner.

She was panting lightly with exertion as she stopped her assault, and she sent him a confused look that still managed to rake him down, looking for further injury—a “we didn’t get much information, are you okay?” sort of thing. He shrugged back a “nothing a boatload of aspirin and a night in a real bed won’t cure” response. She nodded her understanding.

 _ **What are you talking about?**_ she asked, still facing him so he could see her lips clearly.

`What are you talking about?` JARVIS repeated. Okay, while that was going to be useful for Banner, who mumbled and couldn’t keep his head up to save his life, and Stark, who was the worse lip-read ever, it was going to get annoying with people like Nat and Cap and Pepper, who generally faced the people they were talking to. He’d trained Nat early on to be readable, and Steve and Pepper were just clear speakers. It would be like a constant echo.

Natasha stared at the words hanging—backwards for her—in the air, surprise quickly giving way to the sort of fond annoyance that she used to show only for Clint. He’d surprised himself the first time he wasn’t jealous when she used it for one of the other Avengers.

 _ **Stark.**_ She snorted and turned away from him, blindly trusting—or maybe just testing—that JARVIS would pick up the slack. `I didn’t say anything, so it must be JARVIS. He’s pretty snarky when he wants to be.`

` Snark is not one of my programmed response modes, Miss Romanoff.`

JARVIS’s paragraph was indented slightly, so Clint could keep track of who was speaking.

`No, it’s just something you’ve learned along the way, right?`

` Undoubtedly, Miss Romanoff.`

Clint grinned. Okay, forget cool, forget creepy—this was just downright _fun_.

“Who’s Cap dating?” he threw out, changing the subject completely and watching Natasha freeze for a fraction of a second. Interesting. She didn’t know, either. She turned back to face him, her workout bag left behind on the floor.

(WHO SAYS HE’S DATING ANYONE?) she signed.

`Who says he’s dating anyone?` JARVIS printed.

“Oh, no way!” Clint snapped immediately. “No. Sign doesn’t get captioned. That’s not fair.”

 _ **Afraid everyone will know your business?**_ Nat teased, JARVIS repeating the statement. That needed to stop, too.

(YES! IF YOU CAN’T SIGN, YOU DON’T GET TO KNOW,) he signed sullenly. It was the one thing he and Nat had that no one else did. One thing that was _good_ about being deaf. (SECRET CODE, RIGHT?)

`My apologies, Agent Barton. ASL and associated signing languages will no longer appear in the visual translation unit,` JARVIS stated.

“Thank you,” Clint replied.

`Would you like any other alterations made to the display?` Huh. It was kind of nice that Tony had apparently left the thing open-ended so the poor deaf guy could modify it as he needed to. Though he probably just wanted to make sure Clint wasn't _completely_ disabled in his extended infirmity. Stupid genius.

And then Clint had a thought. Because he was feeling a little sorry for himself. And he was bored. And being bored led to mischief. And Stark totally had it coming for that crack last month when he called Clint “Birdman of a Lesser God.”

“Hey, JARVIS,” he asked, nodding to Natasha that he’d follow, as she hefted her gear and headed back toward the elevator. “What are the capabilities of the visual translation unit?” He took a drink of his almost-forgotten beer and started plotting. “Like, what rules can I put on what and when you display?”

`The VTU is fully customizable for your comfort and ease of communication, Agent Barton,` JARVIS supplied. `Only you and Mr. Stark himself have access to the system settings.`

Clint stepped into the elevator after Natasha, who was looking at him and shaking her head. She’d clearly always kind of thought he was a child, so he gave her an evil grin to let her know she wasn’t wrong. His exhaustion was suddenly gone in light of the pissing-off-Stark possibilities...

“JARVIS,” he said, feeling better than he had since the damn op went south. “You and I have to lay some ground rules about this VTU.”

`Of course, Agent Barton.`

Now how did the captioning manage to look long-suffering like that?

 

With Natasha humoring him (and maybe even getting into it a little), Clint managed to give the VTU a pretty thorough workout. He could display the captions in any language—and the translations were pretty good in the languages he spoke, so that was encouraging—and even have the system display things in the languages people were speaking at the time. Natasha went into the kitchen while he sat in the living room and they had a long, involved conversation in German, English, and Russian about how enhanced you had to be to be officially considered “super.”

Clint had no idea what time it was when he yawned for the third time in two minutes and Nat knocked him lightly in the head to get his attention.

(YOU NEED TO GO TO SLEEP,) she signed seriously. The borderline worried look she gave him brooked no argument, and he wasn’t sure he had the energy in him to bring one up, anyway.

(ON MY WAY, BOSS,) he replied, a broad—and probably pretty exhausted—grin on his face. She just gave him a mild glare and headed for the elevators and her own apartment.

He took a deep breath and let himself just drift for a few minutes. There were nights, after a hard op—or even just a day of fighting through too many sounds that, even almost seven years after his hearing went south, were just too loud and too jumbled when heard through machines—he’d come up here and take out his “ears” and watch a movie with the captions on. Just lose himself in the silence and focus of having to follow only two things at once.

He was just about to figure out whether he should try to stand up or just fall over and sleep on the couch, when the light in the kitchen went on.

“You can’t lecture me if you don’t take your own advice,” he scolded, looking at his watch. Nat was slipping—she hadn’t even given him half an hour to get to his bed.

`I think you have me confused—Ah. Right.`

Banner? Probably. Steve would definitely be up this time of night, but he wasn’t one for talking to himself.

As expected, Bruce walked into the living room and peered around, smiling pleasantly as he spied Clint on the couch.

 ** _I … Balkans … are you … ?_** The semi-darkness and Banner’s regular speech patterns obliterated his greeting. Luckily, JARVIS was there to save the day.

`I heard the Balkans weren’t kind. How are you feeling?`

Bruce’s teeth flashed white in a wry smile as the VTU translated him. `That’s clever.`

“Well, Stark _is_ a genius,” Clint quipped, hauling himself up. He was beginning to feel each and every bruise now. He should probably take some more pain pills and go to bed. “Or so he likes to tell us all.”

`I don’t think he was feeling much like a genius today.` Clint didn’t bother to try to read the man’s lips. His headache was coming back. Damn concussion.

“Why?” he asked sluggishly. “One of his grand experiments go wrong or something?”

Banner smiled again. `Something like that.` He gestured to the kitchen. `I was going to make some tea. Do you want anything?`

Clint nodded. “Gotta take the pain pills, so… pizza, maybe.”

Bruce nodded mock sagely and led the way into the other room. `You should definitely eat something substantial, then,` he agreed. `Luckily, there’s some anchovy and mushroom left from a couple of days ago.`

Now _that_ was a midnight snack, Clint thought, as he made a beeline for the fridge.

“Any idea who Cap’s out with?” he asked, grabbing the whole pizza box and setting it on the counter as he liberated a slice and ate it cold. Somebody had to know, right?

Bruce didn’t, obviously. **_… know he was…_** Yeah, not even bright light helped.

`I didn’t even know he was gone, honestly. I’ve been downstairs most of the day.`

Clint shoved another piece of pizza in his mouth, savoring the play of salt against tomato. “Huh. I’ll figure it out later, I guess,” he said, shoving the pizza box mostly back where he found it.

`Or you could just ask him.` Bruce had a wry smile on his face.

Clint snorted. “Where would be the fun in that?” He turned to walk out, headed for the elevators and his room.

`Clint?`

Clint turned back to see a serious look on Bruce’s face.

`We’re glad you’re okay. Maria’s initial report was…`

Yeah. Initially, he was kind of combative and non-responsive, apparently. And possibly freaking out a little.

But what do you say to that? _Thanks, yeah, I sort of lost it because I was flashing back to the first time an explosion ripped through my ears and set my world on its head._ Seemed kind of overly dramatic now. Instead he smiled appreciatively. “Wasn’t the best time I’ve ever had, that’s for sure.” Then, more sincerely. “Thanks.”

Bruce nodded. “Get some sleep.”

And Clint went downstairs and took the pills necessary to do just that.

 

Dilaudid was great for a good night’s sleep, but a comfortable bed was even better, and though Clint felt like he’d been run over by a truck come morning, at least he was a well-rested victim. Not one bad dream, either, which was kind of a surprise. It made the itching in his ears and ache in his knee and shoulders almost bearable, given the memories his brain could have conjured up for him.

His good mood stumbled a bit when he reached for the box on his bedside table and found it empty. He wasn’t sure where his hearing aids had ended up once medical removed them at the SHIELD facility. Didn’t much matter anyway, did it?

Stark’d fix them. They’d have to have a talk about these kinds of scenarios, though. There was already the kill switch he carried that could shut the aids down remotely if he couldn’t reach up to take them out but was under sonic assault. Maybe they could do something like that.

Thinking of Tony made him think of the VTU, which made him think of the modifications he wanted to make. He grinned to himself. Giving Stark a hard time would _definitely_ make his day better.

 

He was perched on one of the barstools in the Sky Lounge, sort of watching some Matt Damon action movie, when Tony finally stumbled in at around ten-thirty the next morning. He looked badly hung over, though not “destroyed by drink” as old Father Dooley used to say. And he would know from drink.

It struck Clint as weird, though. Tony was known for incredibly wild and completely drunken parties, but Clint himself had never seen one. Oh, Stark drank, sure, and sometimes to excess, but these days he rarely dared to drink enough to knock himself sideways, as he’d obviously done last night. The guy never said anything about it, but it was clear he knew he couldn’t risk it anymore. They were the Avengers, after all. Who knew when they’d be called upon to save the world on a moment’s notice.

 _ **Hey, birdbrain,**_ Tony muttered (it was probably birdbrain—something annoying, anyway, but he was mumbling, so who knew?). He nodded to Clint and then immediately turned toward the coffee machine in the bar area, assuming JARVIS would do as instructed and fill Clint in on what he said, obviously not having noticed that there was no neat block of text for his greeting.

`JARVIS treating you okay? You should be all right in the tower at least.`

See, now Stark just deserved this more. Annoying prick. Clint was hardly helpless without the great Tony Stark and his gadgets.

The floating text disappeared as Tony turned around, and Clint did his best to look like he had no idea the other man had spoken a word. Of course Stark didn’t notice, so he just kept talking. He really did look pretty bad. That was why Clint didn’t drink more than a couple of beers at a time anymore.

_**I’ve already got the… for… aids. Damn things…** (something whiny) **... know better… time.**_

Officially the worst read speaker ever. Which was funny, because he was a very clear heard speaker. But he never seemed to move his lips enough to read—worse than Nat had been in the beginning…

Crap. He was still too tired for this. One of the many problems with hearing aids: they lulled you into complacency. Clint had drifted there for a second and missed whatever else Tony was saying, but he hid a grin as Stark finally figured out that JARVIS wasn’t keeping up.

_**Hello? JARVIS, why … not … titled?** _

`Sir?`

Stark’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Clint’s perfectly bland face. _**I see Agent Bar… to screw… pro… ready.**_

`The VTU system controls can be accessed and modified by both yourself and Agent Barton, as requested, sir. I assure you, he has not “screwed with” any of my systems.`

“I don’t need JARVIS translating everything everyone says, Stark,” Clint told him. Maybe a little harsh, but true. “And you did set it up so that now I can purposely ignore you, so it’s kind of your own fault.”

 ** _I just ... easy… fix until… hear again._** Tony said, his face giving nothing away, though his eyes were a little dark, more annoyed than a simple prank like this should make them.

“There’s no easy fix for being deaf, Stark,” Clint replied, unconsciously responding to Stark’s irritation. “And there doesn’t need to be. I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter.”

 ** _I was… but if you… then…_** Fuck, he was annoying! And Clint knew from the pissed off look on his face that now the guy was _trying_ to make it hard to read him.

Stark’s eyes went from dark to crafty and he muttered something, low and tight and maybe not even in a language they had in common—which was only two, and Clint really should have thought of that.

`Modification accepted.`

Clint’s current arch-nemesis gave a pleasant grin and turned away, refilling his coffee cup.

Shit. Clint was usually up for a friendly prank war with Stark, but he was still hurting from the op, and he was tired, and he was just a little off-kilter from having to pay too much attention to the lip reading again, and it seemed like maybe Stark was being not-so-friendly about this for some reason, and—

`It was nice. Great, really—she loved it. Thanks for getting us the tickets.`

Clint spun around in confusion at the random comment, and saw Steve walking in from the elevators, his eyes still trained on the kitchen area, where he’d clearly been responding to Stark. He smiled at Clint, making sure his lips could be easily seen. It was irritating in its own way, this “accommodation” Rogers subconsciously felt the need to make, but not as irritating as Stark and his very conscious mollycoddling.

 ** _I heard Banja Luka didn’t go so well,_** Steve offered, his smile softening into a wry grin.

“The Balkans usually don’t,” Clint tossed back with a shrug. Cap was all too familiar with ops gone wrong.

Clint opened his mouth to ask about the date, when Kanji characters—Chinese, Japanese, who knew?—appeared, scrolling from left to right. Twice as large as the VTU’s previous subtitles, they floated obnoxiously over Steve’s face, which was now scrunched into mild confusion.

**_What is that?_ **

More characters gathered between them. The previous ones remaining to create a dizzying mess of text. Clint’s own next words created another line of chaos.

“Stark’s idea of a joke.” Clint turned back toward the kitchen area, a new block of characters—now running top to bottom and right to left—appearing as he saw Stark talking into his coffee cup, a smirk on his face. Clint still didn’t know the language scrolling across the room and he figured Tony didn’t either. But the characters stayed there and made Tony’s lips that much harder to read.

**_... try to… because…_ **

Another block, this time in German, thank God, appeared. `I don’t know what’s going on here, but is there some reason you two have to one-up each other like this? All the time?`

Stark turned to the fridge, though Clint knew the asshole had no plans for making breakfast. His headache was coming back with a vengeance and he was seriously regretting the whole damn thing.

`I don’t know how what you’re talking about, Cap. I figured JARVIS could help Clint out a little while he’s recovering. I guess I gave Birdbrain a little too much control of the system and he broke it.`

“Fine, Stark,” Clint conceded. “I bow to your superior… whatever.” He waved at the visual debris in front of him. “Just get rid of this crap, will you?”

Stark turned back to face him and the jerk’s smile tightened, Clint noting with satisfaction that the holographic garbage in the air seemed to be getting to Stark, too. Hangovers were murder, especially when you were working so hard at being an ass through one. **_Already…. in… you can… so we’ll see._**

Clint was already exhausted from trying to read the guy, and now Arabic script joined the visual cacophony and he grit his teeth. This wasn’t their usual game, but Clint was damned if he could figure out the new rules. Or why they were playing it at all. He moved so he could see Steve, too, but he only caught the last few words of whatever he was saying.

**_... something nice and leave it at that, for once._ **

**_... him, Steve,_** Stark replied, his smile dropping away to show a cold annoyance and something else Clint was just too tired to figure out. _**… you, I have work… ungrateful… aids.**_ He saluted the two of them with his coffee cup and walked out, leaving a shocked look on Steve’s face that made Clint wonder what the hell he’d said. A few seconds later, the air began to clear until there was a single line of English text:

`I didn’t think he felt that guilty.`

Clint spun around until he saw movement on the stairwell that came up from Stark and Pepper’s living quarters. Pepper was stepping onto the top step, looking across the room at the far stairwell that led down to the labs, where Stark had disappeared.

“What?” This was all just annoying and Clint was missing something crucial and he hated that.

Pepper walked into the center of the room, looking out at the balcony. He didn’t know what Stark had done to the VTU long-term, so he circled around slightly so he could see her face.

 ** _I knew he was upset when we left last night—Oh! Sorry, Clint._** She turned to look at him more fully, an embarrassed shine to her eyes. _**He doesn’t normally drink like that anymore. One good thing the Avengers has done for him, I guess.**_ She shrugged. _**He seemed better this morning, though. He told me he needed to design new shielding for your hearing aids.**_ She probably didn’t notice she was turning away from him, but JARVIS caught the words his eyes couldn’t. `He’s always better if he can fix his mistakes.`

Wait… What?

“How was Banja Luka _his_ fault?” Clint asked, irritated. “Maybe I missed something, but I don’t remember Iron Man flying in and frying every electrical device in the area. I think that’s all on the bad guys.”

Steve got that exasperated look he always got when Stark was being more like his dad than Tony probably ever wanted to be. **_But_ he _made the hearing aids._**

Which could have been better shielded. Which _should_ have been better shielded in that perfect fucking world where Stark should have magically known Clint was going to parachute into Bosnia and Herzegovina and run into a metahuman who could cause massive electrical disturbances with his _brain_.

He shook his head. “Whack. Ass. Genius.” Nodding to Steve and Pepper, he headed for the stairs to Stark and Banner’s Evil Laboratories. “Excuse me, I have to hunt down another crazy scientist.”

No, it wasn’t that Stark was crazy, Clint reflected as he stalked lightly down the stairs. Not really. He just had this insane idea that he should somehow be ready for any and every eventuality. It was what led him to build about 90 versions of the Iron Man suit. It was what created the powerhouse—literally—that was Avengers Tower. It was what made him spend his time coming up with insane things like boomerang arrows and better, stronger, more effective wrist-mounted tasers. And stretchy pants for the Hulk.

Although the boomerang arrows _were_ pretty cool.

It was what made him think that every time some piece of tech failed, it was obviously his fault. Because he should have known better. In short, he was an idiot. And Clint was going to tell him so.

“You’re an idiot,” he declared, pretty much the second he walked into the main electrical lab. He figured Stark didn’t mind him following him, or he would’ve holed up in his own workshop, where no one could get in without his okay. He was sitting in front of a holographic schematic of a hearing aid, making changes so quickly that Clint couldn’t hope to follow it, even if he understood it.

`I’m a genius. You can’t be both.` The words in the air were flippant, but Stark’s body language screamed hurt and anger. Which, okay, fine, anger—pranks were supposed to annoy and irritate, right?—but it was stupid for Stark to blame himself for something that none of them could foresee. The guy had a weird kind of caretaker complex, no doubt, but this was taking it a little too far.

“You can’t honestly think this is your fault, can you?” Clint asked, staring at the rigid back muscles as Stark punched at the holograph. “Because you know I was deaf when I met you, right? I did that all on my own.”

`Kind of makes you the idiot, then, doesn’t it?` It probably sounded cutting and vicious, but Clint only read the massive self-defense manuever that it was. If Clint was a little more himself today, it would probably work, too, and he’d storm out and leave Stark in peace. But he was hurting and tired and deep down, he was really kind of touched that Tony even made the damn VTU for him in the first place.

“Which is actually my point here,” he tried.

`So can you go be an idiot elsewhere? I have things to do. Technical things—you wouldn’t understand.` Again, it was meant to push him away, but his irritation rose not because of the words, but because of the hunched, defensive set of Stark’s shoulders.

“Jesus, Tony, would you just look at me?” he bit out, feeling the sharpness of his command.

Tony did. And Clint saw a wealth of guilt and hurt in his eyes that he was never going to understand. “Yes, I’m a idiot,” Clint admitted. “I got that a long time ago. And the closed captioning thing is cool and I was an asshole for trying to pull that prank on you. But it’s nothing I haven’t done before—it’s nothing _you_ haven’t done before.” His anger welled up all of a sudden. “Why are we standing here like some scene from a soap opera, talking about it?”

 ** _You’re right,_** Tony said, **_Next time … just … deaf as a … let you deal …_** He threw his arms out wide with a sarcastic grin at the end there and Clint didn’t catch a word of it. JARVIS did, though. Stark had apparently reset the VTU to baseline.

`You’re right. Next time, you can just stay deaf as a post and I’ll let you deal with it. This is what you get, ladies and gentlemen, for trying to help people.`

“I don’t _need_ any help, Tony!” he yelled, exasperated. “I’ve been deaf for years, man. It’s not going away, and amazing and incredible hearing aids or not, shit fails, all right? Equipment gets blown out. Life fucking sucks sometimes—but that doesn’t make it your fault that the damn—”

`I knew the shielding wasn’t enough.` JARVIS typed out. Clint wasn’t even bothering to try to read Tony’s tight-lipped words now. The engineer had gone still and angry and there was just no reading him when he was like that. `When I made them originally, I sacrificed shielding for size. I didn’t want them to be visible—so no one would know you were wearing them if you were ever, you know, captured or compromised or whatever.`

“So you were being a genius, then?” Clint asked, slightly amazed that Stark had put that kind of thought into the stupid things. He’d been secretly thrilled when Nat presented him with the first set shortly after the whole business with the Stark Expo, because if you didn’t have a damn otoscope, they were hard to spot once he put them in. “You didn’t even know me.”

`I knew Romanoff wanted them for another agent,` Tony said, looking at him and shrugging and suddenly calm enough now that he could almost be deciphered, even without the visual echo JARVIS provided. `Figured a handicap like that wasn’t something you’d want to advertise.`

Clint bit back a retort. He wasn’t… Okay. Okay, yes. Yes, he was handicapped. But so was Fury, and no one was stupid enough to say it to _his_ face.

“So, when Nat asked you to make field-ready hearing aids, you thought about the possibility of me being outed as deaf—a weakness I know from experience can be easily exploited—but you didn’t consider that I might meet a guy who could blow out electrical substations with his mind?” He shook his head and kept it as deadpan as usual. “Bad planning, Stark. I’m ashamed of you.”

Tony’s body jerked with a snort Clint couldn’t hear, and the man straightened up, placing his stylus gently on the table in front of him. **_Fuck you._**

Clint grinned. “Sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t hear that.” He pointed to a useless ear and shook his head.

(FUCK YOU,) Tony signed badly. Really badly. Who the hell taught him to sign? JARVIS echoed him and Clint hissed in annoyance.

“I thought we had an agreement about that, JARVIS,” he muttered.

`My apologies, Agent Barton,` JARVIS typed. `Mr. Stark’s hand gestures barely qualified as sign language, and I worried you might misunderstand.`

Clint choked on his laugh for a minute, watching the guilt and stress wash off of Stark as the other man joined in.

“Don’t worry, JARVIS,” Clint told the AI, eyes on its creator. “I understand Mr. Stark just fine.”

Which was, of course, a total lie, but maybe he had more of an idea about him, anyway.

 ** _Don’t you ...place to be, Marlee?_** Tony asked, turning back to the workbench and manipulating the holographic diagram to zoom in on a particular circuit path. Clint didn’t need JARVIS’s captions to fill in the blanks.

“You are such an ass, Stark,” he muttered under his breath. He invaded the man’s workspace ruthlessly, and sat down across the bench from him, watching him work. “Nope. I’m benched until I get a new set of ears,” he admitted, feeling a little less depressed about that than he had even just that morning. “I’ve got to keep my eye on you—make sure you don’t screw up again.”

It was a calculated risk, and Clint almost cursed himself as Tony froze for a long moment. But the guy _had_ to see the idiocy of it, right? You just couldn’t predict everything.

`Just don’t break anything,` came the lame reply. Clint watched Stark manipulate the virtual hearing aid, causing it to blow up into its composite pieces and then snap back together.

“The VTU really is cool,” he said, finally. “What made you think of it?”

Stark shrugged. `You don’t wear your hearing aids all the time, anyway. And since you’d rather watch movies with the captioning on, I figured it’d be easy for you and let the rest of us spend less time making sure we enunciate.` Those last few words were said with such exaggerated mouth movements that they actually went past readable into unreadable again.

Clint shook his head. “ _You_ noticed that I don’t watch movies with my aids in?”

`I did`—here both Stark’s lips and JARVIS’s captioning paused for a brief second—`not. But Pepper did, and I consider her a reliable authority.`

Stark held his smirk in for a good half second. Clint was impressed.

“You’re still an ass.”

`She’s a reliable authority on that, too.` They sat in silence for another few minutes. `JARVIS, Mix #5, volume level 6, please,` Stark asked. Huh. Clint hadn’t even thought Tony might be working without music when he came in. Tony looked up through his hair at Clint and back down to his work, not bothering to move his hands so his face could be seen. `If you’d stop going after supervillians, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen, you know?`

“For that, I do blame you,” Clint said, dropping an elbow to the table and cradling his head in his hand. “I could be happily hunting down rogue elements, but you had to go and usher in the Age of Superheroes.”

Tony snorted. `They were already here,` he admitted. `I guess Fury was right about that, too.`

Clint cocked his head. “Wait. What else was he right about?” According to Stark, Fury wasn’t right about the time but twice a day.

Tony looked up from his work and met Clint’s eyes. Looked like he was killing himself trying to speak clearly enough for Clint to read around his headache. **_He said the man I made the hearing aids for was “too damned important to lose to some dumbass accident."_**

Clint blinked, then grinned and let the comment slide, figuring Stark would want it that way. Besides, nice as the sentiment was, he had other things on his mind.

“Who is Cap dating?” Tony _had_ to know. Steve had thanked him for the tickets to wherever he’d gone last night.

`She’s too young for him, that’s for sure,` Tony replied, relying on JARVIS to get his words across. `If the tabloids catch wind of it, it’ll be a media bloodbath.`

Clint frowned. “Isn’t everybody too young for him, though? I mean, aside from your usual nonagenarians?”

`She’s sixteen.`

“She is _not_!” Shit. Really? _Steve?_

Stark punched the air to the right of his schematic a few times and a photo appeared, showing Steve Rogers, neatly dressed in slacks and a casual jacket, with a… child… on his arm; red-haired with Irish features, dressed conservatively in a knee-length dress and crisp white shirt. She sported fishnets and a forties-era fedora with the kind of flare few young people could pull off these days. Clearly an artist. Also clearly infatuated with Steve, who looked disturbingly comfortable. It looked like they were in the atrium at MoMA.

“What the hell?” Clint had spent a fair amount of time with these guys, sure, but maybe he didn’t know Steve as well as he thought he did. Even adjusting for those years in the ice, he was almost twice her age.

`Told you.`

“Now, see, that’s just sick. He’s old enough to be her—“

`Great-grandfather?` Stark said quickly. Which made Clint suspicious—and extremely relieved.

“Who is she?”

`Peggy Carter’s great-granddaughter.` Tony replied with a shit-eating grin. `So technically, if they were doing the nasty before he froze solid, she could be his, too. Good thing he was just helping out her mom by accompanying her to the new Aoki exhibit.`

Clint snorted. (STILL AN ASSHOLE, STARK,) he signed with a relaxed smile, the “o” of asshole bonking his hands against his head enough to reawaken his headache a little. This was good, though. _This_ was what he’d been looking forward to when he landed the quinjet and plodded his way up to the Sky Lounge yesterday. Stupid talk, easy camaraderie…

`Are you saying there’s empty space where your brain is?` Tony asked, collapsing the hearing aid schematic back into a composite piece for the third time since Clint had sat down. `Because I’m not arguing with that.`

The system ran some kind of diagnostic and green bars highlighted labels like “electrical resistance” and “EMP shield strength”. Stark smiled.

`Make it, JARVIS,` he said, closing the holographic window and whirling his seat around to stand up.

`Fabrication will take an estimated nineteen hours.`

`Awesome.` Tony turned back toward Clint and said one word clearly. **_Lunch?_**

Clint shook his head with a smile and rose. “Sure. Long as you’re buying.”

`What do you think I am, made of money?` Tony turned and held the door open. `Wait, don’t answer that.`

“You know, you’re less annoying when I can’t hear your voice,” Clint said quietly, heading for the elevator. “Maybe JARVIS and I should make this a regular thing.”

They wouldn’t, of course. Clint was still going to count the days before he could put those new hearing aids in, but maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought. After all, he had a week to drive Stark to distraction and he didn’t even have to listen to him whine.

Where was the bad in that?

* * * * * * *  
the end

**Author's Note:**

> Quoth's challenge on Beta Branch: "I had a stray thought while watching Iron Man 3 and Sherlock back to back. Tony loves his holographic displays, right? What if he turned on closed captioning in the Tower for Clint so people's words would float above their heads? If someone got on JARVIS' bad side, he could just start misquoting them..."
> 
> This isn't exactly that, but it's... something.


End file.
